When the middle-aged woman said this, I felt like I was completely petrified. The middle-aged woman didn't notice the expressions of the three of us at all. She continued to think and said, "Although my husband usually has a bad temper, everyone in Zhaojia Village knows him well. Even if my husband really offended someone, he would never be treated like this. So I think my husband must have accidentally offended the evil ghost when he went out yesterday, which led to the evil ghost's revenge. Or the evil ghost hid in the express delivery and came out in the middle of the night to harm people!"
I basically didn't hear what the middle-aged woman said next. I turned around and glanced at Lin Yingxue and Bai Longfei, nodded at them, and then continued: "Where is the express now? What's in it? Can you bring it over so I can have a look?"
"The stuff is still there. My husband and I curiously opened the package last night, but we found that there was nothing inside. It was just an empty box. So I threw the package into the demolition room outside."
I turned around and asked Bai Long to fly out to find the express, then stood up and observed the room again. If there were no bloodstains, this room would still look very simple. The bedroom and the living room were connected together. Although there were two windows, the windows were not big enough for a person to come in. The only way to enter the room was the door behind us.
I walked over to the door, looked at it, and asked, "Do you lock the door when you go to bed at night?"
The middle-aged woman nodded and said, "It's locked. Although there's nothing to steal in our house, we can't sleep without locking the door, right?"
This is an old-fashioned door that opens on both sides with a horizontal bar in the middle. It looks like the doors in period TV dramas, but in my opinion, this kind of door is still very easy to pry open. Just use a stick to reach out from the gap in the door to push open the bolt, and the door can be easily opened.
I walked out to take a look, and discovered that the ground outside the door was covered with a layer of fine sand. I gently swept away the sand, and a large number of bloody footprints appeared on the ground. Among them must be the murderer's footprints, but after the murder, there were so many people coming and going that it was impossible to judge anything from the footprints.
I returned to the house, looked at the brick bed in the deceased's home, and asked, "Are you sure you didn't hear any noise last night? Including when your husband died?"
Although this earthen kang looks a bit big, the pillows are close to each other, which means that the deceased couple usually slept very close to each other. Under such a close distance, when the husband's heart was dug out, even if his mouth was blocked, the people next to him would definitely feel some movement.
The middle-aged woman cried and shook her head, "No, my husband was already dead when I woke up in the middle of the night. He died silently without even making a sound. He must have been killed by an evil spirit, otherwise how could I not have noticed it?"
Although I don't know whether the middle-aged woman was lying or not, if she was not lying, the murderer must have used some means to make the middle-aged woman fall into a deep sleep. I think the possibility of drugs is very high.
At this time, Bai Longfei, who had gone out to look for a courier box, ran in in a hurry, handed me the courier box that I was so familiar with, and said, "I checked the sender's information, and it was indeed sent by Qiongqi!"
Looking at the familiar Qiongqi's signature on the express delivery slip in my hand, I instantly felt my emotions plummet to the bottom. It seemed that I didn't even have the strength to hold the express box. Without saying hello to the person behind me, I stood up and walked out of the house alone.
When I walked out of the yard and came to the village path, I heard Lin Yingxue and Bai Longfei chasing after me. They looked at me and asked me worriedly what was wrong.
I shook my head and didn't answer, while Bai Longfei looked puzzled and asked, "How is this possible? We didn't tell anyone when we came here, how did Qiongqi know? Does he really have the ability to predict the future? He knew we would choose this place, and arranged everything in advance, waiting for us to come in?"
Lin Yingxue said: "It goes without saying that this must be the way Qiongqi chose to confront Ji Wen. This case is too similar to the previous "heart-digger case" in Zhongwei City. They are basically the same. What does Qiongqi want to do? Let us solve the same case again?"
Bai Longfei disagreed and said, "I don't think so. If these are two completely identical cases, then the murderer's motives and methods must be exactly the same. In this case, we don't have to work so hard to solve the case. We just need to sort out the previous "heart-piercing case" and apply it to the current case, and we will naturally find the murderer! So Ji Wen, don't worry or be afraid. I don't think this Qiongqi is anything special."
I shook my head helplessly and said, "No, I'm not afraid of Qiongqi. I feel very guilty now. If it weren't for me, this peaceful village wouldn't have had such a thing happen."
As I said that, I looked up at the two people beside me and said, "Remember when I came here, I said I wanted to do a small test? Now it seems that my test was completely successful, but it indirectly harmed this family!"
The test I mentioned is, of course, the final verification of the traitor of God's Organization hidden in the special case team, because before I only saw his unusualness from some clues, but I didn't have complete evidence, so I planned to use our time out to trap the person wearing the evil ghost mask to verify the traitor as well.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to find the traitor alone and pretended to accidentally reveal our plan to go to Zhaojia Village. Then I left quietly, waiting quietly to set off in the evening.
This is the content of my test. If that person is really a traitor, then the news of my leaving the special case team will definitely reach Qiongqi's ears. Then at that time, Zhaojia Village will most likely be the battlefield between Qiongqi and me.
Although the traitor will get the news from some channels after we leave, and will also tell Qiongqi, but if he tells Qiongqi after we leave, Qiongqi will doubt the confidentiality of the traitor's identity, and even suspect that we are setting a trap for him to come. That's why I let Bai Longfei leave a few hours later, just in case Qiongqi dare not come! After all, I had already thought about it when I came here. If possible, I will catch Qiongqi and the man wearing the evil ghost mask at this place!
But who could have thought that this Qiongqi was so powerful. In the limited time I gave him, he had already designed a case for me, and even recreated the first case I encountered at that time, the "Heart-Ripping Case". He was able to do so many things in such a short time. I have begun to doubt whether Qiongqi is a human being.
Of course, suspicion is suspicion, but what I feel more in my heart now is regret. If I had not tried to test the traitor, then this case would not have happened, and the poor man who had his heart ripped out and died would not have encountered such a thing.
After I expressed my thoughts, Bai Longfei and Lin Yingxue fell silent. Bai Longfei sighed, handed me a cigarette and said, "Don't blame yourself. Although you are responsible for this matter, now is not the time to blame yourself. It is obvious that Qiongqi has been waiting for you, but he can't do anything because you are in the special case team. Think about it differently. If you came to some other place instead of here today, this case would still happen, and it might be even more tragic than the case in front of you. The only thing you can do now is to find out who the murderer is as soon as possible and catch Qiongqi as soon as possible, so as to atone for your sins."
Although I still couldn't get over this hurdle, I nodded, took Bai Longfei's cigarette, lit it, found an ordinary villager, asked about the specific location of the land temple, and then walked towards the land temple.
Thinking back to the "Heart-Ripping Case", I didn't see the bodies of any of the victims from beginning to end. Only when the boss Zhang Peng was killed in the interrogation room did I see a real body. So I decided to go and see the body first to see if I could find any clues left by the murderer when he committed the crime.
The land temple is not far from the village, and we soon arrived at the land temple. It is obvious that the temple is quite old, with an ancient architectural style and the houses seem to be crumbling. However, we could not care less at this time and immediately walked into the land temple. We were surprised to find that the body of the deceased with his heart dug out was not in the temple!
There were still some bloodstains on the ground of the land temple. It was obvious that the body had been carried here before and parked here, but why was it gone now? Could it be that they had found the Yin-Yang master and carried the body back to perform a ritual? Then why didn't we meet him on the road? You know, there is only this one road between the land temple and the village.
Just when I was wondering, I suddenly heard hurried footsteps coming from the path behind me. I immediately turned around and saw a young man in his twenties standing outside the land temple, looking at us in shock. It was clear that his expression had just experienced something horrible.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
When the young man saw the three of us, he immediately stepped back in vigilance. I explained that we were police officers and were here to investigate a case. Bai Longfei took out his police ID and only then did the young man dispel his suspicion of us. But then, the young man fell to his knees on the ground, and his legs were shaking, I don't know if it was because he was scared or because he ran too fast.
"There's a corpse! There's a corpse in the village!"